Within the context of the Bible, the story of Phineas is minor and unremarkable. Yet this relatively obscure event would later be shanghaied, distorted, and adopted by members of the church of Christian Identity to promote their own supremacist agenda, which revolved around race religion. The church of Christian Identity put forth Phineas as the template for their concept of “solitary warriors,” thus fomenting violence and terrorism. Thus, the next step in understanding the Phineas Priesthood involves an examination of Christian Identity. Image courtesy amazon.com

The term ‘Christian Identity’ comes from the following doctrinal statement: “We believe the Bible identifies the Anglo-Saxon people with the Old Testament nation of Israel.” The statement, of course, is wrong. It reflects a misinterpretation of what happened to the Lost Tribes of Israel after their dispersion.

The Bible records – and historical evidence corroborates – that around 721 B.C. the Northern Tribes of Israel also known collectively as Samaria, were conquered by Assyria and carried away into captivity. This was Assyria’s way of punishing Samaria for failing to pay tribute (taxes).

What happened to these ‘lost tribes’ has always been a controversial topic among Biblical scholars, amateur theologians and Christians.

According to some, the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel migrated to Great Britain, where they gave origin to the Anglo-Saxon or Caucasian race, which is also referred to as Aryan. The term given to this erroneous interpretation is British-Israelism.

The first person to really buy into the idea was John Sadler, who was a member of the British Parliament. He published a book called Rights of the Kingdom in 1649. In his book, Sadler put forth his belief that Europeans, Anglo-Saxons, Germans and Slavs were the descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel. Since this was the period of British Imperialism, when the British Empire had hegemony over much of the world, Sadler’s claim wasn’t astounding. Most of England held the position they were not only racially superior to the rest of the world, but they were also “God’s chose people.” Indeed, circumstances served to prove the point.